


convergence

by novoaa1



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Natasha Romanov-centric, Nightmares, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Natasha Romanov, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Sexual Assault, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Red Room (Marvel), Wanda Maximoff & Peter Parker Friendship, Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, a couple alice in wonderland references, bit of a natasha character study in the beginning, but how much she cares for wanda outweighs that inner battle which we love to see, but the second half of it is all wanda and natasha, idk dude, natasha fighting with dual sides of herself sorta, non graphic discussion of rape, wanda's powers act up during her nightmares, war and peace shows up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24905131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: A split-second later sees her ducking in place as a paperback copy ofWar and Peacewhizzes over her head from across the room to slam against the open door behind her with athud, and all extraneous thoughts fade into white noise.“Wanda,” she tries gently, dutifully maintaining her distance—because really, she knows better than to touch someone trapped in a night terror, much less a witch with the power to send her straight back to the Red Room at a moment’s notice.Nothing.“Wanda,” she tries again, louder this time as she inches closer. “Wanda, wake up."Or: Natasha's struggling in the wake of Ultron. Wanda is, too. (Maybe they can struggle together... )
Relationships: Phil Coulson & Natasha Romanov, Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 19
Kudos: 227





	convergence

**Author's Note:**

> back to basics? idk i was reading some wandanat stuff last night adn i missed writing for them 
> 
> and i'm still stuck on the other work i have with them so 
> 
> pls let me kno w if there are any glaring grammatical/spelling errors i ahve a tendency to not proofread anything ever

After the first time, her mind is broken.

(It’s almost funny, she thinks—funny that even after all her training, all the blood she bled, all the lives she stole as if she had any right to them in the first place… she crumbles at the first glimpse of nebulous scarlet.)

A vengeful young woman with crimson magic and eyes that glitter like blood-red rubies reaches deep inside her and rips a long-dead memory from her rotting core, the kind that had always threatened to shatter her if she let it—and surprise, surprise: she breaks. 

It’s difficult to explain how it felt before—even Natasha can’t totally make sense of it. 

The best she can provide is this:

Before, there was a wall made of glass. It stood in the very forefront of her mind, dividing every aspect of her being into two individual components: Natalia on one side, Natasha on the other. Phil and Ivan. The KGB and S.H.I.E.L.D.

There was always a lucid awareness in Natasha, a sort of clarity to be found in the knowledge that Natasha had once been Natalia, that rather than Phil she had once had Ivan, that instead of running ops for the KGB she now ran them for S.H.I.E.L.D.—two sides of the same coin. 

Thus, Natalia’s memories were (and had always been) Natasha’s to share, and conversely, the opposite was also true: Natasha’s present was not, nor had it ever been, hers alone to claim. 

And yet, there always remained a wall of glass between the two. A clear division isolating what had once been, from what now _was_.

Two sides, one coin. 

And then, it happens. 

Natalia raises a fist to the glass as the scalpel pierces her stomach, once-dull-green eyes aglow with scarlet-red radiance that threatens to blind Natasha if she dares look too closely. 

Natasha can do nothing but watch, helpless while Natalia shatters the looking glass with a single blow. 

This time, there’s no obstruction to muffle the smooth tenor of Madame B’s voice as it washes over her like a bucket of ice water; there's no divider between herself and the small red-headed girl that points a handgun at a defenseless man tied to a wooden chair, nothing but the burlap sack over his head to stifle the truly pitiful whine that escapes him when he realizes he’s going to die. 

The scalpel pierces Natalia’s abdomen, and Natasha whimpers because it hurts, because she knows what’s about to happen but she doesn’t quite yet understand what it means, because somehow it dawns on her that they’re about to take something from her she can never replace. 

The looking glass splinters, the coin melts, and for the first time in a very long time, it’s impossible for Natasha to tell where she ends and Natalia begins. 

☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾

She doesn’t much care about Ultron, but she fights like it matters—because to Natasha, it does. 

She catches a glimpse of the young witch as they battle—long chestnut-brown hair and crimson eyes that glow like dying stars and something like a smile pulling at the corners of her pinkish lips. Her magic surrounds her, ripping Ultron’s bots to pieces with nebulous tendrils of scarlet red; she wears silver rings on every finger, a simple black dress that sways around milky-pale legs with the wind, and Natasha’s apple-red leather jacket upon her shoulders like she owns it. 

Natasha finds the sight of her quite lovely, even as Natalia aches to put a bullet between her well-shaped brows. 

Wanda Maximoff walks away relatively unscathed (to Natalia’s great dismay), even if her speedster twin isn’t quite so lucky. 

☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾

A month passes, and Wanda stays. 

Tony offers her the 72nd floor to call her own (just a floor above Natasha’s), to which she gracefully accepts. 

She does well to handle her grief—certainly better than Natasha might’ve expected.

There are nightmares that Natasha can easily hear from a floor below (Wanda’s telekinesis tends to act up pretty spectacularly on those nights), and moody outbursts directed towards Steve and Sam and pretty much every other person on the team at some point or another. 

There’s broken furniture and pointless argumentation and one-woman training sessions down in the gym at 2:00am… but there’s progress, too. There’s the occasional smile and genuine apologies where apologies are due and a burgeoning friendship with Peter Parker that ensures she’s not alone in her despair, that she doesn’t have to be, and what’s more: she damn well knows it. 

And as for Natasha… well. 

She has something of a handle on Natalia now, though even to say that is ~~probably~~ overselling it. 

She’s more Natasha every day than she is Natalia, though she’ll admit that Natalia constantly hovers far closer to the surface than she’d like. 

Still, it’s far better than it used to be, because where before (i.e. just after Ultron) she had episodes—small gaps in her memory where she’d been Natalia with only the barest hint of Natasha’s influence to keep herself in check—she now just has… involuntary recollections. 

Natalia doesn’t haunt her any longer, because to a certain extent, Natasha has consumed her. Sure, Natalia is still there, lying dormant within—a piece of her, for all intents and purposes. But hadn’t it always been that way?

No, that is nothing new. Perhaps markedly harder to control, perhaps a backslide in what precious little progress she’s managed to make since becoming Natasha Romanoff, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.—but above all else, nothing new. 

What’s new is the visions that plague her at night— _memories_ , rather.

The looking glass is no more. It’s broken—shattered. 

There’s nothing to protect her when they come; when she’s squeezing 7-year-old Nadya’s neck in her chubby little hands, watching the very life drain from the pretty blue eyes of a girl she once called friend; when Natasha is watching Natalia about to murder an unarmed man on his knees but the perspective shifts and all of a sudden it's _her_ trembling hands that hold the gun and she can’t tell who’s the killer anymore. 

Needless to say, she doesn’t sleep very well these days. Or at all, really. 

But that’s okay. 

She is marble. She will not break. (Not again.) 

☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾

She’s sitting cross-legged upon the kitchen countertop on her floor at something like 3:00am, holding a steaming mug of spearmint tea between her hands and willing them not to tremble when she hears it:

A series of thuds, followed promptly by a muffled cry. 

_Wanda_.

The young witch hasn’t had one of these in a while—the nightmares that were bad enough to send various objects flying across the room, chaos reigning while she called desperately for help that wouldn’t come.

Natasha is halfway to the elevator (steaming mug left forgotten on the countertop) by the time she realizes what she’s doing. 

Still, that does little (if anything at all) to deter her:

The titanium-alloyed elevator doors slide open a split second after she presses the “UP” button, and she’s greeted by F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s cool Irish-accented tone from above. 

“Good morning, Miss Romanoff. Where to?”

“Morning, F.R.I.D.A.Y. Wanda’s floor, please.”

“Of course.” The elevator begins to rise. “Though, I feel obligated to warn you that the current readings coming from her floor are… troubling.”

The elevator stops, then, though the doors remained closed. 

“I’m a big girl, F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Natasha assures the AI glibly, waving a hand dismissively through the air. “I can handle it.”

“Of course, Miss Romanoff. I wish you the best of luck.”

With that, the doors part, and Natasha steps out onto Wanda’s floor. 

The designs of each residential level are much the same; thus, Wanda’s is a near identical copy to that of her own. 

Kitchen space to the left, lounge space (complete with a Stark Industries television) neighboring one of three available bedrooms to the right, and a hallway straight ahead that leads to a large bathroom and the two additional bedrooms (among other things) in the suite. 

Even if Natasha hadn’t been on Wanda’s floor various times (and therefore knows she always sleeps in the single bedroom that leads directly out into the lounge space), it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the door with glowing crimson energy seeping out from underneath it is the one she’ll find Wanda in. 

A mild sense of unease rises in her gut as she approaches, though she wills herself not to falter. 

There’s no resistance (magical or otherwise) as she turns the knob and gently pushes the door open; she can’t decide if that’s a relief or just puts her even more on edge. (Waiting for the proverbial ‘other shoe’ to drop, as it were.)

She turns to her right and Wanda is there, thrashing violently atop the sheets (curious that she’s not _in_ them, Natasha thinks absentmindedly) wearing tiny black spandex shorts and a familiar-looking XL white T-shirt emblazoned with ‘BROWN’ across the chest in bold black lettering aloft a roaring grizzly. 

It takes less than a second for Natasha to realize why the shirt looks so familiar—it’s _hers_ , one she’d bought on a whim at the Bookstore after a long (and unexpectedly bloody) semester undercover at the University.

A split-second later sees her ducking in place as a paperback copy of _War and Peace_ whizzes over her head from across the room to slam against the open door behind her with a _thud_ , and all extraneous thoughts about Wanda wearing her shirt fade into white noise. 

“Wanda,” she tries gently, dutifully maintaining her distance—because really, she knows better than to touch someone trapped in a night terror, much less a witch with the power to send her straight back to the Red Room at a moment’s notice. 

Nothing. 

Wanda's figure contorts strangely atop the mattress, eyelids squeezed tightly shut, the too-big white T-shirt plastered to her slender torso with cold sweat. Another anguished whimper escapes her, and Natasha aches to set her free. 

“Wanda,” she tries again, louder this time as she inches closer. “Wanda, wake up."

She gets a single knee-high boot hurling itself at her head for her efforts. (She only barely manages to catch it in time, watching the object warily in her fist as the crimson light around it promptly dissolves before tossing it behind her.)

“Wanda,” she calls in a voice that borders-on yelling, not bothering to dodge as the girl’s phone hits her _hard_ just above the hip before falling to the ground at her feet with a solid _thunk_. “ _Wanda_. Get _up_.”

Another series of terror-filled whines and frantic flailing movement breaks Natasha’s resolve. 

_Fuck it_ , she thinks, lurching backward a couple inches as a sharpened No. 2 pencil whizzes past her nose to impale itself in the door with a _thwack!_

She regains her balance in a second, then falls to a crouch the next. 

_War and Peace_ lies within arm’s reach behind her, facedown atop the polished hardwood flooring. _It’s in rather good shape_ , Natasha observes offhandedly. _It almost looks brand-new_.

She snatches it up and rises to her feet, then immediately ducks back down a second later as a familiar red-leather jacket sails over her head. 

She creeps closer, then pokes at Wanda’s thigh with _War and Peace_.

Another choked whimper, another wild thrash against the sheets, but nothing else. 

She pokes her again, harder this time. 

Nothing. 

She—

All of a sudden, a vibrant ruby-red sphere the size of a men’s basketball hurtles into her stomach, squeezing all the air from her lungs and propelling her back to slam _hard_ against the open door behind her. (She thinks she hears the wood splinter upon impact.)

It dissolves a second later, and she’s falling to the floor… or, at least, she _would_ be falling to the floor, if there were any _floor_ to be had. 

Instead, it’s black, and she plummets down into it—for an absurd second, she feels a bit like Alice in Wonderland… though her name isn’t Alice, and she’s pretty damn sure she isn’t going to Wonderland. 

There’s a brilliant flood of light, a splash of luminescent crimson, and everything changes around her. 

She sees the Kazan Cathedral in a city—St. Petersburg—blanketed with snow, tiny flakes of it falling down from the nearly-black night sky overhead. 

Well, she was right. She’s not Alice, and this is most certainly not Wonderland. 

She sees a bed— _her_ bed, her small wrists cuffed to its rusted metal frame. She feels big, meaty hands pulling up her skirt from behind; rough, calloused palms kneading her upper thighs; warm blood trickling down her inner thighs, a white-hot pain piercing that sensitive place between her legs—an open and festering wound that never closes. 

She sees—

The unforgiving hardwood floor breaks her fall, even as she feels a strange object digging into her lower back hard enough to bruise— _the heel of a knee-high boot_ , she realizes belatedly after a moment.

Cool air fills her heaving lungs, a droplet of cold sweat trickles down her temple, and someone is _there_ —

Wide, frantic blue-green eyes; a faint spattering of freckles across pale cheeks; a single name falling from her lips over and over and over again like an apology, a desperate plea, a _prayer_ — _“Natasha.”_

_Wanda_.

“—Natasha, please, I’m so sorry,” she pleads, voice choked with unshed tears. “I-I didn’t mean to, I _promise_ I didn’t, I’m so sorry, please, _please_ say you're okay, I know I wasn’t supposed to see—"

“Wanda,” she murmurs out, her tone gravelly like it gets after she's been screaming. (She files that away for later.) “Wanda, calm down.”

“Natasha,” Wanda breathes out reverently, then moves to cover her gaping mouth with trembling hands as her eyes fill with tears. 

Natasha gets there before she can—grabbing either of Wanda’s wrists in a gentle hold (loosely enough such that she knows she can escape if she so desires) and pulling them away from her face. 

“I’m fine.” She doesn’t know who she’s trying to convince—Wanda or herself. “You were having a nightmare.”

Wanda hesitates then but eventually gives a shaky nod, wet blue-green eyes intent on Natasha all the while. “Y-Yes.”

“About Pietro?” Natasha reaches back and wrenches the boot out from behind her, then tosses it off to the side. They can deal with that later. 

Another shallow nod. “Yes.” The girl hesitates, then, and Natasha can practically see the gears in her brain turning, can almost _feel_ the weight of the question she wants so desperately to ask lingering on the tip of her tongue. “And you… "

“I saw my past,” Natasha confirms, fighting to keep her tone neutral (—Natalia’s furious insistence to just snap the young witch’s neck and be done with it aside). “And since learning more about how your powers work over the past month, I’m assuming you saw it too.”

A resurgence of despair floods Wanda’s tear-filled eyes along with the faintest glimmer of fear, and her voice is shaky as she admits, “Y-Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Surprise registers in Wanda’s gaze beneath a sheen of guilt and tears, followed by a watery self-deprecating laugh. “I… I should be asking _you_ that.”

“That memory… has been a part of me for a very long time.” Natasha shrugs. “But I know it's not easy to witness something like that.”

“Natasha, he… he… " Wanda trails off, brow creased, mouth struggling to form the words.

“He raped me,” Natasha finishes for her, and pretends not to notice the way it makes Wanda flinch. “Yes, he did. And I’m sorry you had to see it.”

A single tear traces its way down Wanda’s cheek, and Natasha yearns to reach forth and catch it with her thumb. (But she doesn’t.) 

“I wish… I wish that never happened to you.” A shudder works its way down Natasha’s spine at the raw _conviction_ in Wanda’s words, congested with tears as they might be. "That—That should _never_ happen. To anyone.”

“If it hadn’t been him, it would’ve been someone else,” Natasha answers plainly, and she hates the anguish that flares in Wanda’s watery blue-green eyes as a result but right now she’d rather be honest than not (as outlandish as that may seem), and she doesn’t plan to take it back. “It’s okay, Wanda. It’s over now.”

Wanda’s jaw clenches even as a tear slides down her other cheek, and this time Natasha doesn’t stop herself from reaching forward and catching it with her thumb. 

Wanda shudders visibly at the gentle brush of Natasha’s touch upon her cheek, but leans willingly into it rather than pulling away, and Natasha doesn’t regret it in the slightest. 

“I want… I want to _kill_ him for what he did to you,” she confesses; she sounds livid and terrified all in one—like a young girl that doesn't know what it means to kill without cause, what it is to murder. Not like Natalia does. 

Natasha would prefer that it stay that way. 

“You don’t need to,” she assures her, a macabre grin tugging at her lips even as she cups Wanda’s jaw oh-so-gently in her hand, rubbing her thumb in soothing motions across her cheek. “I took care of that a long time ago.”

They’re both silent, then, for a long moment—but it’s the good kind of quiet: comfortable and still. 

“Natasha, I—" Wanda starts, then stops herself with a wordless sob. “I am _so_ sorry. I still don’t understand my powers, and I promise I’m trying, I—"

“You didn’t mean to,” Natasha interjects, quiet but firm, allowing her hand to fall from Wanda’s cheek to grasp the witch's trembling hand in hers. “I know you didn’t mean to, and I forgive you.”

Wanda nods (though she doesn’t quite look convinced). “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping anyways.”

If at all possible, Wanda manages to look even more crushed at this most recent revelation. “I-I’m sorry for that, too.”

“Don’t be.” Natasha shrugs, slipping her hand from Wanda’s (something she almost instantly regrets) and getting to her feet. 

She briefly surveys the dimly-lit bedroom (which is just short of completely trashed), then turns to flash an expectant look down at a cross-legged Wanda, extending her hand for the girl to take.

She does—clasping Natasha’s hand in her own, allowing Natasha to pull her considerately up from the ground. 

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” Natasha asks softly as they stand nose-to-nose in the doorway, their hands clasped loosely in each other's. 

Wanda reaches out with her free hand to poke something near Natasha’s head—the No. 2 pencil from earlier, sticking eraser-first out of the splintered (but miraculously still standing) door behind her. Her teary-eyed expression is caught somewhere between amusement and concern, and Natasha can’t help thinking it’s one of the most adorable things she’s ever seen. 

“I-I suppose I should try,” she answers eventually, hesitance in her tone. “Though I should probably clean all… _this_ up first.”

“Want some help?”

“Oh, no, you don’t have t—"

“I want to."

Wanda blinks at that—once, twice, a shy (beautiful) smile spreading slowly across her lips. “Okay. I… I’d like that.”

☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾ ☾

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts? comments? .. concerns?👀
> 
> (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/) or just look me up @ultralightdumbass cause i'm on there a lot more often!)


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